


Drive You Wild

by hopeless_eccentric



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Canon Trans Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Car Chases, F/F, Getting Together, Meet-Cute, Minor Violence, Pre-Canon, Useless Lesbians, as a lesbian. this is gay culture i promise, buddy aurinko hold my hand challenge, but it's a car chase, it's what they deserve, like it's a car chase and buddy's too dang focused on how pretty her copilot is to care, sometimes climbing into a stranger's car and yelling DRIVE is a love language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26116627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: Something dangerous reared its head within Buddy's chest. It was the kind of thing that shouted her name as she escaped a ball with a million creds in stolen jewels dripping from her gown. It roared in approval at the thrill of the chase and thought blaster fire sounded like sweet music. Though her hands trembled at the presence of this fabulous beast, it made her gaze grow sharp and it split her face into a gritted grin.It was the kind of beast fed by things like stolen jewels and a runaway thief riding shotgun, and Buddy Aurinko liked it best when it was well fed.
Relationships: Buddy Aurinko/Vespa Ilkay
Comments: 22
Kudos: 61





	Drive You Wild

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to apply for either of their hands in marriage so I wrote the meet cute/car chase they deserve. 
> 
> Content warnings for mentions of gun violence and pursuit

Buddy Aurinko was the kind of woman who drove a sensible car, meaning she owned a car and drove it sensibly. She thought any self-respecting thief would be foolish to put a gem on wheels, then balk at being remembered and chased down by the police force. Rather, the sensible thing to do was drive a practical car and be the gem yourself. 

So with diamonds around her neck and wine red press on nails wrapped around the steering wheel like bloodied claws, she knew it was in her best interest to pull over when she heard police sirens from behind. 

At least, it would be in her best interest if the streets of that particular planet didn’t clog like an artery whenever someone, thief or lawman alike, needed to go somewhere fast. If she wanted to get out of the street, at least three pedestrians and a tree would pay for it. She doubted leaves or entrails would compliment the new chrome on her wheels. 

It became clear enough after significant honking and an audible argument between a pair of patrol car drivers that she wasn’t the one they were after. Even if for once, she had nothing to hide but a ring or two she had stolen out of sheer adoration for the deep blue gemstones, she could never be too careful. Though this block of the city reeked with conflicting scents trailing from fast food restaurants like smoke from a factory, she kept one window open by just a few inches, so she might keep a tab on the officers. 

She picked up enough from their conversation to know it was a pedestrian they were after, though the woman was apparently slippery enough that a foot chase had required cars. From what she could glean, they were after a thief. 

Buddy knew well what they said about honor among thieves, but decided if she saw something, she would say nothing. Besides, the woman would likely get away unscathed with these brutes after her. At the end of the day, it wasn’t Buddy’s problem, and her only worry was an off-planet heist two weeks away and the traffic clearing up in a lane she unfortunately, wasn’t turning into. 

That was until someone ripped the passenger door of her car open, pointed at that empty lane, and met her shocked gaze with a look like wildfire. 

“Drive!” The stranger commanded, hoarse and desperate. 

Buddy slammed her foot into the gas before she could even process what the stranger had asked her to do. 

Behind, the sirens roared to life like ancient dragons awoken by the theft of an item from their hoard and determined to set anything and everything alight in search of the thief. Buddy wasn’t sure if the growl she heard was from her engine or the back of her throat, but she swerved into the nearest too-tight back alley and tightened her grip on the steering wheel like her life depended on it. 

Something dangerous reared its head within her chest. It was the kind of thing that shouted her name as she escaped a ball with a million creds in stolen jewels dripping from her gown. It roared in approval at the thrill of the chase and thought blaster fire sounded like sweet music. Though her hands trembled at the presence of this fabulous beast, it made her gaze grow sharp and it split her face into a gritted grin. 

It was the kind of beast fed by things like stolen jewels and a runaway thief riding shotgun, and Buddy Aurinko liked it best when it was well fed. 

“Go, go!” The stranger pressed when the police sirens grew louder behind them. Buddy didn’t need to be a detective to know exactly who she had just let into her car, or rather, who had just let herself into Buddy’s vehicle. 

“Darling, you’ll have to be patient,” Buddy did her best not to snap. 

“I’ll be patient when I’m rotting in jail. Hit the gas!” 

“Heavens,” Buddy began. “I was under the impression that I had already exceeded the legal speed limit by double, though if you insist, I’ll continue to break my vehicle for the benefit of a total stranger.” 

“Kick me out if you want, I don’t care,” the stranger growled. “But don’t taunt me with it.”

“Kick you out? Whatever gave you that idea?” Buddy mused. The practiced grin she used in conversation with socialites eased across her face, though with the growling of her engine beneath and the screaming of wheels on asphalt, she had a feeling it was darker and haughtier than intended. 

“Just thought I’d be realistic with my expectations,” the stranger shrugged. 

“Well, I’m afraid I don’t plan on letting you leave my vehicle until the police are far behind, so we might as well get used to each other’s company,” Buddy offered. “What might I call you, darling?” 

“Vespa. Vespa Ilkay,” the stranger replied. Buddy, still white-knuckled on the steering wheel, had yet to tear her eyes from the road, but she still heard the tentative smile in Vespa’s voice. 

“Vespa,” Buddy said, trying the shape of the word in her mouth. She felt her heart pound as those two syllables fluttered past her lips, almost entirely unaware of the screams of the sirens anymore. “It’s beautiful.” 

Vespa snorted. 

“Thanks. I picked it myself.” 

“My further compliments then, darling,” Buddy added. 

“I don’t mind you calling me darling too much, either,” Vespa smiled. “Anything I can call you?” 

“Buddy Aurinko,” she returned. “Though I wouldn’t mind it if you called me darling either.” 

Buddy caught a glimpse of Vespa raising an eyebrow in the mirror. 

“Like the thief?” 

“You sound surprised, Vespa,” Buddy chuckled. It was getting harder and harder to focus on ducking the car around tight corners and slamming the breaks to let the police cars fly past on open roads when that name tangoed past her lips like smoke from the mouth of a starlet. 

“I’ve just—“ Vespa cleared her throat. “Heard the name. I liked your work with the necklace theft.”

“Oh, that little thing?” Buddy couldn’t help but grin. 

“Yeah, where you escaped in that million cred car. That was—“ Vespa cut off again to swallow. “It was slick. Classy.” 

“I’m honored that you think so, darling.” 

As the city began to fade into a distant blip on the ever-stretching desert horizon, the revving of police engines and the wailing of sirens began to die with it. While light pollution still stained the early evening sky a dusky yellow, millions of tenacious pinprick stars still danced through the great dark expanse above. 

Buddy let out a sigh, eased her grip off the steering wheel, and finally spared a glance for her new partner in crime. 

She was struck with two thoughts in quick succession. First, an odd sensation that her press-on nails were perhaps, just a bit too much, and that she hoped to rid of them shortly. Second, though it would break her heart in two, she had to force her eyes away to avoid crashing the car. 

The woman at her side, with her accidental charm and that low voice that made Buddy’s heart do acrobatics, looked the way cool water felt to a parched throat. Though her chest was still heaving with the adrenaline of the chase and her green hair long since tousled, something about the shape of her nose and the line of her jaw and the accidental grace of her hands made Buddy swerve the vehicle. 

“Easy there,” Vespa chuckled, though her grip had gone tight on the handle above the door. Buddy wasn’t sure if she meant to flex her lean, muscled arms in that movement, but the effect was the same either way. 

“My apologies, darling,” Buddy chuckled, though she could tell her voice and composure were both a million miles out of her reach. 

The blazing look in Vespa’s eye softened into something more akin to a candle, rather than a wildfire. It was a gentle expression, though it burned nonetheless. If not for the road ahead, Buddy would have stared at that flame forever. 

Even when she turned back to the road, the purple shadow of that light still blazed against her eyes, dancing like strange and beautiful ghosts in the deep blue night all around. 

“You know, you can just drop me off at the next city or something,” Vespa sighed, though it sounded like it broke her heart to say it. “If you want, that is.” 

“You don’t have to go,” Buddy said before she knew the gravity of what had escaped her lips. Buddy Aurinko, as far as she knew, worked alone. She doubted Vespa Ilkay was much different. 

Buddy braced so hard for the negative response that she barely missed when it never arrived. 

“I mean, I don’t really have a lot of choice. If you don’t want me to go—” Vespa broke off to chuckle. The sound fluttered like a little bird, and Buddy decided right then and there that her life would be incomplete if she never heard such a sound again. “You’re the one driving the car, Bud.”

“Bud, hm?” Buddy couldn’t help but grin. 

“Sorry, if you don’t like it, I mean—” Vespa started to stutter, but Buddy broke her off with a hearty laugh. 

“It’s lovely, darling. There you are. A nickname of your own,” Buddy mused. “My darling.”

Vespa tried and failed to suffer a choked noise. 

“If it bothers you that much—” Buddy started.

“No! No. I, uh, like it. I like it a lot,” Vespa protested. 

“Wonderful, my darling.”

“Hey, Bud?” Vespa began again. “What you said about not wanting me to go—did you really mean it?”

“Of course,” Buddy said, though for the first time all evening, a waver crossed her voice. “If you’re going to ride off into the sunset after a successful heist, I would rather you not do it on foot.”

“Seriously. I know you usually work alone, but if we could try a two-lady act thing, I don’t think that would be all that bad,” Vespa suggested. Buddy’s vision was trained on the thousand-mile road ahead, but she could hear Vespa’s voice grow tense. 

“I have an upcoming heist in about two weeks. It was meant to be another in a very long line of jewel heists by the incomparable Buddy Aurinko,” she considered, a laugh lining her voice. “But I don’t see why it couldn’t be a jewel heist by Buddy and Vespa.”

“Buddy and Vespa,” Vespa said, as if trying the phrase on her lips. In the mirror, Buddy could see a crooked smile split her face in two. “Vespa and Buddy.”

“I think I liked the first one a little better,” Buddy chuckled. 

“Why not both?”

“Buddy and Vespa. Vespa and Buddy,” Buddy tried. 

“Well?”

With thousands of miles of road and desert and night stretching all around, a near-stranger in her passenger seat, and a grin that made danger quiver in its boots, Buddy murmured that phrase one more time. Buddy and Vespa. Vespa and Buddy. 

“It’s cinematic, darling. I’ll give you that,” Buddy mused. “They sound like a pair of thieves who would meet under strange circumstances and then drive off into the sunset before they’ve even had a first date.”

Vespa snorted. 

“It sounds horrible when you say it like that.”

“Quite the contrary, Vespa,” Buddy grinned. “I think it’s rather romantic.”

“Yeah,” Vespa breathed. “I guess so.”

“So what do you say, darling? Shall we ride off into the sunset?”

“It’s already night, Bud,” Vespa chuckled. 

“I’m sure they’ll leave that out when they make that stream about the two of us,” Buddy mused. 

The city was hardly a dot on the horizon when Buddy reached a hand across the console and felt her face break into a beam when another hand that gripped a little too tight slotted its fingers between hers. 

Buddy and Vespa. Vespa and Buddy. 

The thought made her feel like she could reach into that endless night sky and pluck the stars by hand.

**Author's Note:**

> i was gay to start and writing that fic just made me gayer
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below!!
> 
> Hit me up on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 if you're interested in one of my free (you read that right. FREE) penumbra writing commissions!! I've already done two and I'm hoping to do more!!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Drive You Wild [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26976943) by [entropyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/entropyre/pseuds/entropyre), [linktopus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linktopus/pseuds/linktopus)




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